Doctoral Dissertation Research: Borderlands Justice: Women's Leadership in the Colonias of Dona Ana County, New Mexico

世界各地的地方社区都感受到了全球资本对其区域经济和政治体系的影响，但相对较少关注区域下属社区如何应对伴随其迅速融入全球资本主义体系而发生的变化。 美国的殖民地-墨西哥边境提供了一个独特的，但有点代表性的一瞥这些进程的行动。 殖民地是美国城市的农村，未合并，不受管制的分区。 他们通常拥有不合标准的住房，无法获得安全清洁的水、废水处理系统和电力等基本必需品。 这个博士论文研究项目将探讨两个主要问题：什么是边境地区的特定政治和经济进程，导致在colonias的增长，并创造资源剥夺的条件，科洛尼亚居民的经验？ 生活在殖民地的人们如何组织起来，以解决和处理这些问题？ 为了回答这些问题，一个有能力的博士生正在新墨西哥州中南部多纳安娜县的37个殖民地进行深入的研究。 将采用纵向方法，利用次级资料来源，如殖民地发展理事会、多纳安娜县殖民地委员会、天主教会和地方政府单位的记录和报告，记录殖民地与整个地区更广泛的社会经济和政治力量之间关系的演变。 在项目的第二阶段，学生将在很大程度上依赖民族志的方法，因为她专注于社区组织的问题。 对科洛尼亚居民的广泛抽样调查和对长期居民的深入访谈将阐明科洛尼亚人民和机构之间的互动以及重塑社区的非本地因素，特别关注科洛尼亚内的社会动态以及区域和更大规模的过程如何在日常活动中经历，解释和采取行动。 在该项目的这一阶段，还将审查科洛尼亚居民为解决各种问题而成立的组织，以及妇女作为这些组织和其他社区团体领导人所发挥的作用。 除了澄清在这些迅速发展的社区工作的社会过程，该项目将有助于一系列的理论观点，包括批判性的人文地理学理论与当地居民创造的地方的意义，女权主义理论，研究如何日常行动，地点和生活经验相交，以产生个人身份，以及处理环境和资源不平等的环境正义理论。 作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立的研究生涯。

Local communities throughout the world are feeling the effects of global capital on their regional economies and political systems, but relatively little attention has focused on how regionally subordinate communities respond to the changes that accompany their rapid integration into a global capitalist system. The colonias of the U.S.-Mexico border provide a distinctive yet somewhat representative glimpse of these processes in action. Colonias are rural, unincorporated, unregulated subdivisions of U.S. cities. They typically have substandard housing and lack access to fundamental necessities like safe clean water, waste-water treatment systems, and electricity. This doctoral dissertation research project will examine two major questions: What are the particular political and economic processes of the border region that lead to growth in the colonias and create the conditions of resource deprivation that colonia residents experience? How do people living in the colonias organize in order to address and deal with these problems? To answer these questions, a capable doctoral student is conducting intensive research in the 37 colonias of Dona Ana County in south central New Mexico. Longitudinal methods will be used to document the evolution of relations between the colonias and broader socioeconomic and political forces in the region as a whole, using secondary sources like the records and reports of the colonias development council, the Dona Ana County colonias commission, the Catholic church, and local government units. During the second phase of the project, the student will rely heavily on ethnographic methods as she focuses on questions of community organization. Surveys of a broad sample of colonia residents and in-depth interviews with long-standing residents will illuminate interactions between the people and institutions in the colonias and the non-local factors that are reshaping the communities, with special attention given to social dynamics within the colonias and how regional and larger-scale processes are experienced, interpreted, and acted upon in daily activities. Also under examination during this phase of the project will be the organizations formed by colonia residents to address a diverse set of issues and the roles that women play as leaders of these organizations and other community groups. In addition to clarifying the social processes at work in these rapidly evolving communities, this project will contribute to a range of theoretical perspectives, including critical human geography theories associated with the meanings of places created by local residents, feminist theories that examine how daily actions, place, and life experiences intersect to produce personal identifies, and environmental justice theories dealing with environmental and resource inequalities. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.